Right now in the first couple of weeks of July, garden butterfly numbers tend to rocket. The summer emergence of Peacocks, Commas, Brimstones, together with Meadow Browns and Speckled Woods, plus a surge in the number of 'cabbage white' butterflies, mean that there is a flitting and fluttering going on in a way not seen until this point in the year. The only problem is that it can all be very distracting when you're meant…

When I moved house (and garden) four years ago, I set out a list of target wildlife I wanted to make a home for. That then determined the habitats I needed to create and the plants I needed to grow.

This target setting I find is a good game - it gives a focus, and it then gives a sense of achievement when the wildlife you're aiming for arrives and settles in.

I like to believe my goals are ambitious, but it also…

I was taking a morning breather this week, which involves a quick lap of the garden after a burst of RSPB day-job work (just to let nature replenish the spirit - I find it better than caffeine), when I spotted a handful of flying insects scooting low over a large pile of dry, bare earth that is waiting to be turned into another Buttterfly Border.

Looking more closely, they looked rather like little wasps, with the tell…

I'm one of those people who have a very active dream life, and for the most part it is all rather pleasant, or even at times like an action movie.

One of the dreams that I really look forward to is where I find out that I can fly. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does, I'm off! My flying action in dreams is rather like that of the Snowman - I just kind of zoom with my arms stretched out without having to…

The bedrock of wildlife-friendly gardening is plants. They fuel the foodchains that ultimately lead to our towns and villages being full of birds, bats, butterflies, bees, and indeed many creatures that don't start with a 'B'.

The added value comes when you choose your plants well.

So last week I was thrilled (to the point of rushing to get the camera) to see that one of my purposeful plant choices had come…

Last week, I looked at how I'm making a garden 'hay meadow' from scratch.

But what if you haven't got the time or money or energy to go to all the trouble of creating a clean seedbed and sowing it from scratch? What can you do with an existing lawn?

Well, here's how my 'pop-up meadow', as the author Jenny Steel calls them, is shaping up in its first year.

It is an area that I laid with…

I've got a bit of an experiment going at the moment in my garden - I'm making meadows, in different ways, and seeing how well they do and what wildlife they attract.

Just to ensure clarity, we're talking perennial wildflower meadows, full of native wild grasses - the hay meadows from days of yore. These aren't beds of annual 'cornfield' flowers such as poppies. The distinction is critical because it drastically…

I was lucky enough to spend a week in May enjoying sights such as this:

I was in Pembrokeshire in west Wales where Choughs seem to call from every clifftop and Gannets plunge dive offshore, and I took the Puffin photo above on the incredible island of Skomer, where some 30,000 breed.

While there’s nothing you can do to make your garden perfect for Puffins, I’m always on the look-out for lessons I can bring back to…

Last May, I was witness to great drama in my pond as a Grass Snake caught and consumed a large Common Frog.

Although not quite a Crocodile attacking a Hippopotamus, it was nevertheless in a back garden context quite a sight, and something I've never seen before in many, many years of nature watching.

So when this week, almost a year to the day, I saw a commotion in the pond, I wasn't surprised to go out and find…

I'm just back from a wonderful break in Pembrokeshire, island hopping, enjoying the Puffins, and strolling - nay skipping - across miles of golden sands.

While there, I had the pleasure of visiting the National Trust’s Stackpole Estate in west Wales, where the woodland flowers were putting on a grand performance.

Stealing the limelight were copious amounts of Primroses still in flower, an injection of creamy…

Have you been spending many an hour in the last few weeks dealing with your garden's weeds as they start to run amok? Have you had that sinking feeling that you are fighting a losing battle?

How different it would it all seem if you felt that those weeds had some kind of purpose?

Well, the weekend before last, I had the great pleasure of visiting my friends Roy and James, and the surprise for lunch was what we…

When the calendar flips from April to May, there is one wildlife thought that always comes into my mind: its Swift Time.

In some years you might see the first returning Swift in the last week of April, maybe over a southern lake swooping low. Or if the weather at the start of May is cold and blustery, it may be another few days before you spot one winging through. But of all summer migrants, this is one that always seems…

If you like wildlife gardening, and love learning more, you might like this: the Wildlife Gardening Forum is laying on a Wildlife Gardeners Day on Saturday 19 May 2018 at The Wetland Centre, London.

I know, because I'm speaking at it, but don't let that put you off!

To attend, it doesn't matter if you are an expert or beginner - all you need is the interest and passion to do more for wildlife in your garden…

I had a first in my garden this week. Funny how we have such a clear sense of what has visited before, and who is a newcomer.

This one was perched on one of my SquirrelBuster birdfeeders, and could easily be passed off as a House Sparrow from behind, being just rather brown and streaky.

But that tail is too forked, that wing bar too broad, those wing and tail feather margins too well outlined as if in white pencil…

Have you heard of the Asian Hornet? It flirted with the headlines in 2016 and 2017, and we'd like it if it never became headline news again, but that's where we need your vigilance.

So let's start at the beginning. The Asian Hornet comes from America. (Ok, ok, it comes from East Asia, but I wanted to ensure you were concentrating!) In its homeland, it is just part of the natural web of life, but it was accidentally…

I'm sure many of you are like me: I love the birds in my garden, passionately, but I love all the other wildlife as well, and I love doing things to help give all of them a home.

Of course, it makes sense to do so, because wildlife isn't independent of each other: all the species fit together as a community, as interlinked foodchains, as an ecosystem.

There is also a growing realisation that gardens are actually…

I love growing plants. I'm what is known as a plantaholic.

Like millions of gardeners across the country, many of the plants I grow aren't native, either to Britain or to the area of the country I live in. So I grow dahlias from Mexico, Echinacea from North America, lavender from southern Europe, Verbena bonariensis from South America, Agapanthus from South Africa, Wisteria from China and Acacia from Australia…

Well, it has been some winter, hasn't it? And it looks like it hasn't done with us yet, with another icy blast in the offing.

All the more amazing, then, given that my garden looked like this barely ten days ago with powder snow swept in modern-art-like streaks across my deeply frozen pond...

...that this bird came and sat right outside my study window this week:

You probably recognise it as a Collared…

In the recent hard weather, I've been visited daily by a Mr Blackcap.

As you can see, he has taken to eating sunflower hearts from one of the SquirrelBuster birdfeeders, taking his turn among the Greenfinches, House Sparrows and Goldfinches.

Very attractive he looks too, in his demure way, and seemingly perfectly at home on a tough seedy diet for a bird we think of normally as an insect eater, although he does…

I'm sure that many of you have enjoying (or enduring) scenes like this in recent days, which was my garden on Tuesday.

Once the sun came out, it was picture-postcard time from my bedroom.

It is the first lying snow I've had in three years here, and all very lovely as seen from the comfort of a centrally-heated house.

It is the kind of weather than makes birds do unexpected things - I'm sure many of you…

A garden full of plants is the bedrock of giving nature a home, and April is prime time to start many on their journey. Yes, it's time to sow seeds.

I still can't believe how cheap it is to grow plants this way. Many potted plants at garden centres cost a tenner each, when you could grow 50 of the same from seed for about two quid plus the cost of a bag of compost.

Many people do say to me, "Oooh, no, I can…

I do have mixed feelings about this time of year. On the one hand, I'm eager for spring to really show its hand, feel the warmth of the sun, and be surrounded by an explosion of life. On the other hand, I don't want to rush it and spring be half way through before I've even had chance to appreciate it.

So today I thought I'd head out into my garden and just enjoy those little signals that spring is starting…

My garden is currently alive with Mumruffins.

Maybe you come from Nottingham and call them Bum Barrels, or from Norfolk and call them Pudding Bags, but I'm from Worcestershire so Mumruffins it will stay.

In a birdbook you're stuck with the rather more prosaic Long-tailed Tit, and I have to say I have a rather soft spot for them.

A troupe of about a dozen - which will be an extended family party - passes through…

Of all the decisions to make in a garden, the one I always think should not be put off is the question of planting trees.

Certainly the decision should be carefully considered, because the wrong tree in the wrong place can provide real headaches down the line.

But the right trees in the right places are such a winner for wildlife that you really will make a difference for nature by doing so.

And the problme is that…

Birds are fascinating enough in themselves, but they have this added element of intrugue in that many are master homebuilders. Every year, they have to collect together a bunch of raw materials and construct something from scratch that will safely hold a clutch of highly-breakable eggs plus an incubating parent sat on top of them, and then survive a pit of squirming, clamouring babes. And they do all that without the…